


Significant other

by Mechanical_Heart



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Bittersweet, Droids, Melodrama, Other, Robot Feels, Robot Sex, Robots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:30:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9265736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mechanical_Heart/pseuds/Mechanical_Heart
Summary: They both were called K-2SO, the security droids created for Galactic’s Empire armed forces. Killing machines without emotions, cold metallic drones made to follow any order without hesitation. Droids of identical name, identical design, identical AI programming.However, Kay was different from any other of his kind. Abducted from his homeland, reprogrammed, serving the Alliance, living with humans. He was without memory erase long enough to develop personality, to form attachments, to contemplate the meaning of own life.During the mission on Scarif he has to join his body and mind to another K-2SO unit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Contains spoilers.  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything, this is just a fan fiction.

_(The following scene starts at about 1:30 in the movie.)_

According to Kay's precise calculations, the chance they'll accomplish this mission was close to zero percent. A success was improbable, it was like a hopeless suicide. But no one wanted to hear out his opinion. And if Cassian was going to die on Scarif, Kay would follow him and die there by his side.

As they were going up in the lift to the Citadel Tower, in perfect disguise of Imperial soldiers, the atmosphere was freezing. Only they three in the lift: Cassian, Jyn and Kay. The captain, his lover, his droid. Rest of their team was probably dying right now in the fight to distract the enemy. Cassian was trying not to think about it. He attempted to freeze his heart into a cold stone, to concentrate on the mission only. He has done it a thousand times, as a professional soldier - and still feelings were bleeding through the cracks of his stony heart. It was Jyn who made those cracks, it was Jyn who made him love again, it was Jyn he was afraid to lose the most. Most likely, he will see her die today.  
  
How many times he secretly wished to be as composed and cold like his metallic droid? Just fulfill an order and feel nothing, think about nothing afterwards. Well, he often had the impression that Kay may actually _feel something_ , but it was miles away from human emotions. The droid never cried, he never had depressions, he never had nightmares. Unlike Cassian.

…

"We need a map," said the captain into the freezing silence.

It was a command meant for Kay, clear and simple. Surely plenty of K-2SO security droids were guarding the Citadel Tower. Cassian knew their system well, they had a map of the surroundings in the database – logically, to join another K-2SO was the fastest way to obtain a full detailed map, all access codes included.  
  
But this was a command Kay didn't want to hear. He would do _anything_ for Cassian, but he would _hate_ to do this. _Anything_ , but please not this.

"Well, I am sure there is one just lying around," snapped the droid boldly, to show his protest.

"You know what you have to do," ordered Cassian strictly.

That command was definitive - they would get nowhere without a map. Kay calculated it quickly – it was certain that Cassian is well aware of the high risks it takes. It can go all wrong and cost Kay’s life. But is his master also aware what the act itself means? Joining an artificial intelligence wasn't like accessing a computer. It was _an_ _union with another’s mind_.  
It was an act of the closest proximity, something especial like what _sex_ meant for humans. Is Cassian aware of that?

...  
  
Droids were machines, mere tools. They had no feelings, no ideals, no beliefs. Droids had _no_ _souls_. It was their masters who programmed them, who decided for them what is good and bad, who gave purpose to their lives. Following fully their master’s orders, droids believed they obtained a little bit of their master’s soul. To follow their master, to follow their soul, was their highest objective.

No wonder Kay would do anything for Cassian. Absolutely anything, without exceptions.

If Cassian told him to fight alone against 100 stormtroopers, Kay would have a lot of sarcastic comments about own unknown hidden superpowers, but in the end he would die proudly in that unequal fight.

If Cassian told him to protect Jyn and be the whole mission by her side, Kay would be there for her every second, even if it meant to lose the only valuable thing that mattered – the life of his master.

If Cassian told him to connect his body to another K-2SO unit, to bare own entire programming in front of another droid, to join their minds into one in this forbidden act - and then rip the map out of the other droid's system - Kay would do it, too.

...

Their disguise has been perfect. No one got a suspicion so far, they could walk freely all over the base. Kay was giant and eye-catching, yes, but there were many exactly same droids in the building. They were the most irreproachable, the most devoted machines – no one would believe one could be reprogrammed! On the first sight, no one here would found a group with K-2SO droid suspicious.

There was another K-2SO walking towards them. Not paying attention to them, with the only task to get to the assigned place. More than two meters high, dangerously looking security monster, 160 kilos of obsidian metal in movement, with two glowing ocular sensors.  
In every detail identical to Kay's appearance.

As he passed by, Kay was looking into his eyes, yet the droid ignored him completely.

In that moment, Kay felt a stroke of anxiety.

Yes, he was actually afraid. He, a droid build without fear of death, without fear of failure, made to obey coldly any given command! But joining another's mind wasn't like entering a battlefield. There had to be a reason why the mind union between K-2SO droids was forbidden by their Makers and punished with complete memory erase.

He was afraid to see himself in the mirror the other's K-2SO mind. To face everything he has once been, to remember ideals of Galactic’s Empire he has once abandoned, to question the meaning of what he has now become.  
Kay and the other K-2SO, they were made identical and yet they were standing on the opposite sides.  
The reprogramming has given Kay a lot – a free mind. However, (and Cassian never realized it) it has taken away from him just as much - his home.  
Kay was now a traitor.  
Who will decide which side is the true one? Droids didn’t have ideals, they fought for the ideals of their masters. They didn’t know what is right and wrong.  
  
Kay had no idea what a _mind union_ feels like. He has never done it. It might break him, it might break his counterpart. It might turn him against his master. It might make him realize things he never wanted to find out.  
It might change his whole being.

But he would risk everything for Cassian.

And for the ideals in which Cassian and Jyn believe. _Freedom and love_. Kay, a droid, could never understand their true meaning, but Jyn once told him it was something worth to protect with every means, something worth to even die for. Because a life without freedom is mere suffering. A world without love is dark and painful place.  
Even for a tiny little hope, it was worth to fight for it with everything they had. And that’s why they were here, on this suicidal mission, with a probability of success less than 1%, yet it was the very last bit of hope.  
  
Kay couldn’t feel love. Kay couldn’t understand freedom.  
But if it was something essential for the _living souls_ , he would do anything to protect it.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued...


End file.
